Developers tend to be lazy in Steve Jones' view. This week he examines some of the problems that this lack of effort can cause in applications.  Read more...

In this update from the past week Steve Jones looks at leaks in encrypted disks and Web 2.0 development.  Read more...

Steve Jones talks about data mining in the drug industry and the advantages of cheap software.  Read more...

Intel is moving in the direction of more and more cores on a single CPU, so what does that mean for programmers?  Read more...

Steve Jones looks back at a week of news on data center infrastructure, the EF war, and SQL Server 2008 news.  Read more...

I see, with some relief that the threatened removal of Rules and Defaults in SQL Server 2008 hasn’t happened. There has been a stay of execution. Even though they are documented, they still come with a dire warning that they are deprecated and will be removed in future versions. They have fallen foul of the SQL Standards committee, and we are now supposed to use check constraints instead.   Read more...

Steve Jones looks back at the news of the past, including a look at RC0, the latest release of SQL Server 2008.  Read more...

The other day, I was chatting to a keen PostgreSQL user. We're used to having free databases, such as IBM DB2 Express-C, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, SQLite and Oracle XE, but PostgreSQL is different in that it is open source. It is a proper, dedicated community too, I was told...  Read more...

A look back at the news from the week including Windows 7 and taking an unwired vacation.  Read more...

A guest editorial from Phil Factor on the kindest way to dispose of unwanted IT projects.  Read more...

Steve Jones looks at the performance of column changes, petaflop computing, and a few ways to beef up your DBA skills.  Read more...

It is always a jolt to move from the sane world of SQL, where Begin, begin and BEGIN have exactly the same effect, to the alien territory of XML, C, Java and JavaScript, where words have different meanings according to whether they have capitals or not.  Read more...

A look back at the news of the past week dealing with SQL Injection, slow SQL Server growth and two level security.  Read more...

If impeccable technical skills are a "given", what are the soft shills that will make you an Exceptional DBA rather than a competent DBA?  Read more...

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Commentary on the database related news of the past week. SQL Server 2008 Certification, deep inside SQL Server and the Library of Congress.  Read more...

A look back at the news of the past week including Windows 7, SSD performance, April Fools, and consistency in SQL Server.  Read more...

There are many SQL Server DBAs with an intimate knowledge of how SQL Server works, the operating system, hardware and so on. They have the skills to keep a production system running without a hitch. It is no longer enough.   Read more...

A look at some of the interesting database news from the previous week (March 24, 2008).  Read more...

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There are many SQL Server DBAs with an intimate knowledge of how SQL Server works, the operating system, hardware and so on. They have the skills to keep a production system running without a hitch. It is no longer enough.   Read more...

A guest editorial from Phil Factor on the kindest way to dispose of unwanted IT projects.  Read more...